Citrine
by Westing1992
Summary: Steven has a dream that leads the Crystal Gems to discover an old ally, previously thought lost, trapped in her gemstone for thousands of years.
1. Chapter One

_[Author's note: Although I have had experience in writing before, this is my first fanfiction, so don't judge too harshly, but feel free to leave criticism._

 _I neither own nor work on Steven Universe, so if I get any details wrong about the show's internal rules or backstory, either those already revealed or those revealed after this story is published, I apologize._

 _This story takes place after 'Chille Tid' but not necessarily right after; it could take place before or after the Week of Sardonyx, for example, or somewhere in between as-of-yet unaired episodes, at least up to the point where it no longer makes sense in canon.]_

* * *

Steven woke up. It was about eight, the same time he usually woke up, and he was filled with the same youthful energy as always, but something was different this morning. He had emerged from a troubling dream—not a disturbing dream, not really, just a troubling dream, the likes of which he had dreamt before.

He glanced about the room. Sometimes, one or more of his guardians would be there, sitting and contemplating things while waiting for Steven to wake up. There was no one waiting there today, however; they must have been either out on a mission or doing something inside the temple. So it was Steven's turn to wait for them.

He got up, got dressed, and poured himself some cereal and milk. About halfway through his second bowl, the door at the far end opened and Garnet emerged.

"Good morning, Steven," she said.

"Morning!" Steven replied. "You don't have anything you're planning to do today, do you?"

"Nothing that can't be done tomorrow," Garnet said. "Do you have something in mind?"

"I just want to make sure you, Amethyst, and Pearl will all be here together."

As he said this, the door opened again and Pearl exited; moments later, the same thing happened except with Amethyst.

"Well, I had a good sleep last night," Amethyst said, stretching. "How about you, Pearl?"

"You know perfectly well that I don't sleep," Pearl replied with some annoyance. Amethyst's teasing had had the desired effect.

"This is great!" Steven exclaimed. "Now that everyone's here, I can tell you about this odd dream I had last night."

"Welp, time to go back to sleep," said Amethyst, stretching out on the couch and closing her eyes in preparation of the boredom to come.

"No, it's wasn't like that; this was much more important!" Steven protested. "It was like that dream I had about Lapis. But this wasn't about Lapis…or Malachite, I guess. It was about a Gem I've never seen before."

"And you're sure this wasn't just an ordinary dream?" asked Pearl.

"Of course not! I mean, it started out as a normal dream with me acting as arbitrator between two feuding factions of the Crying Breakfast Friends, but then everything disappeared and I heard someone call out 'help me', except they weren't really saying 'help me', that's just what their emotions were saying, and I kept getting glimpses of this Gem and this location and so I think that Gem is trapped in that location and we need to save her."

"This 'location' you mentioned," said Amethyst, "it's on Earth, right? Because if not, we're not really gonna be able to help her."

"Of course it's on Earth!" said Steven. "At least, it _felt_ like Earth. I mean, I can't really describe it, but I know there's some Gem out there and she needs our help!"

"So there's some unknown Gem out there? Could that be possible?" asked Pearl, glancing a bit to Garnet as if seeking an answer from her. "I'm still not sure how he was able to mentally link with Lapis through his dreams. I mean, Rose didn't have that ability."

"Rose didn't sleep that much, either," Garnet replied. "And Steven isn't Rose. He has healing spit instead of tears, and he can fuse with humans. And although the ability to communicate mentally with Gems outside of fusion is uncommon, it's not unheard of. Future vision is just as rare, but we all know it exists. So Steven," she said, turning back to the boy, "you said this location was on Earth. Do you think you can narrow it down a bit so we have a place to begin looking?"

"I think so. Maybe." Steven scratched his neck. "I can picture it in my mind, but I don't know where it is. But it seemed familiar. Or at least, it _felt_ familiar." He thought for a moment. "The Gem Battlefield! I didn't recognize it at first because the strawberries weren't there in my dream."

"There?" said Pearl. "But I thought we had combed the entire area for any shards!"

"Evidently not," said Garnet.

"Yeah!" said Steven enthusiastically. "We should go there and look for her! …Right after I finish my breakfast," he said, placing another spoonful of cereal in his mouth.

Soon, the warp to the ancient gem battlefield activated and the figures of the four Crystal gems emerged. Bushes of strawberries stretched as far as the eye could see, interrupted occasionally by discarded gem weapons and chunks of stone that did not appear to have formed in the field naturally.

"I know the Gem's around here somewhere," said Steven, "but where are we supposed to start looking?"

"This way," Garnet said matter-of-factly as if she knew without a doubt where the gem was located, which was most likely the case. She led the others across the field to a large rock, weathered by erosion and sunk into the ground. "Here," she said.

"Er…that's a bit big to be a gemstone, isn't it?" said Steven.

"No, she means that the stone is trapped underneath," said Pearl. "They're trying to reform, but there's no room for it."

"Precisely," said Garnet, and she lifted the rock and tossed it aside. There, in the depression it left behind, was a small, yellow gemstone, a little covered in dirt but still shining. Steven ran down and scooped it up.

"Steven! Be careful!" yelled Pearl. "It could have very well fought on the Homeworld's side!"

"Even if she did, we should still help her!" said Steven. "We could—gah!"

The gemstone glowed and levitated from Steven's hand; Steven backed away from it, hiding behind the other Crystal Gems for safety. In midair, a humanoid shape formed around the gem; this shape soon changed to another one, then another, rapidly shifting through what seemed like dozens, then hundreds, of variations. Finally, it settled on one and the now-solid figure descended to the ground.

The new Gem's physical form was slightly taller than Pearl's. It was, of course, primarily yellow-yellow skin, yellow hair, yellow clothes—like her gemstone. Her hair was long and flowing, and her gemstone was set in it to one side like a barrette. It was her dress, though, that was the most noticeable, ornate and a mismatch of styles, as if its creator had spent too much time overthinking its design and tweaking it so that it included every possible decoration she could think of: the skirt was covered in ribbons and ruffles and had so many layers it was if she were wearing a crinoline; the bodice was festooned with a large bow in front and held together at the back by not only tied knots but also several sets of buttons and zippers; the sleeves were poufy and pleated virago style, ending in intricate lace.

The Gem seemed dazed initially and not entirely aware of her surroundings…or herself. She blinked a couple times and then gazed at her newly-formed hands. "I'm…back? I'm back!" she said happily, not noticing the others who just out of her eyeline to her right.

"…Citrine?" said Pearl softly.

The gem turned at the sound of her voice. "Pearl!" she exclaimed, then rushed to her with open arms to embrace her in a large glomp.

"Er, hi, Citrine. Good to see you too," said Pearl awkwardly.

Citrine let go, then noticed the tall, dark-red Gem fusion to the side. "Garnet!" she cried, tears forming in her eyes. She ran over and gave her a hug as well. Then, in the middle of that, she noticed the short purple Gem who was standing beyond her.

"Gah! An Amethyst!" she shouted. She panickedly clambered to the top of Garnet's head, who, to her credit, did not seem to mind, even as Citrine's impractical dress fell down and draped in front of her face.

"Don't worry; she's with us," Garnet said.

"Oh." Citrine climbed back down and approached Amethyst. "Nice to meet your acquaintance." She held out her hand in greeting. Amethyst gingerly shook it.

Citrine turned back to the more familiar Gems. "So, I take it we won against the Homeworld in the end? I hope?"

"Well, yes," said Pearl, "but the vast majority of the Gems on our side were lost in the end. I mean, we thought you had been one of the casualties before today."

"But how about Rose? She wasn't destroyed or captured by the Homeworld, was she?"

"Er, no. She was one of the few members of the rebellion who were saved." Pearl had said the truth, though she had left out certain recent developments and had as such was most likely giving Citrine an inaccurate view of how things currently were. The four Crystal Gems were all aware of that, but none had the courage to inform Citrine of it yet.

"Well, that's good," said Citrine. "So, how long was I out? One hundred, two hundred years?"

"Over five thousand," said Garnet.

"Really? Wow," said Citrine. "I guess I lost track of time after the first few decades. Though I probably should have figured it was longer, what with all these strawberries having grown. Does it take that long for strawberries to grow? I don't have a really good grasp on how long it takes things to happen naturally on this planet.

"Oh, and you have a human with you!" she said, the first time that she had actually acknowledged Steven's presence. She walked up to him and, without any regard for his personal space, started examining him. "Doesn't seem to be fully-grown, though," she said, lifting his arm. "Why do you have an adolescent with you?"

"Uh, that's a long story," said Pearl, concerned about Steven's discomfort but not wanting to call out Citrine's behavior after she had spent so long in her gem. Amethyst, on the other hand, found it amusing.

"Their textiles have come a long way," remarked Citrine, grabbing at the front of Steven's shirt. "The fabric and stitching on this garment is—"

She stopped suddenly. Lifting the shirt had revealed Steven's stomach and, more importantly, the pink gem that was set in it.

"What…why does this human have a gemstone? Wait, is this…is this Rose's gem?"

"Er…yes," said Steven nervously.

Citrine let the shirt fall back down and, for the first time, looked Steven in the face. "Then where's Rose?" She suddenly grasped his shoulders and shook him. "Who are you?"

Steven was too scared to respond.

Citrine twirled around, a look of terror in her eyes, desperately seeking an answer from the other gems. They, however, tried to avoid eye contact. They had had trouble coming to terms with the answer themselves, and they had been there at the time; none of them wanted to relate it secondhand to someone who had been absent for the past five millennia.

"Who is he? _Where's Rose_?"


	2. Chapter Two

The Crystal Gems managed to get Citrine calmed down after a while, and, as she sat with trepidation, they explained all that had happened in her absence. They told her about Greg and his relationship with Rose, and how she gave up her physical form to have Steven. They told her about the corrupted Gems they had been battling ever since the war ended, and they told her about how a Homeworld ship had recently arrived, and how one was still at large while the other was stuck in a fusion somewhere in the ocean. And finally, they told him about Steven's dream and how it had lead them to her.

"Wow," said Citrine quietly after the others had finished.

"I know it's a lot to take in," said Garnet. "We'd love to have you as an ally in our fights against the Homeworld and the corrupted Gems, but you're free to refrain from missions for a while if you don't yet feel adjusted.

"No, I'm fine," Citrine said, smiling a faltering smile. "It was just a shock, that's all. I should have expected something like this, though. I mean, five thousand years? That's a lot of time. Some things were bound to change."

"Are you sure?" asked Pearl. "I mean, you acted pretty panicked once you saw that Steven had Rose's gem."

"I was just a little loopy from being trapped in my gemstone for so long. I'll be back to normal by tomorrow."

"I dunno," said Amethyst, regarding Citrine with squinted eyes, "you seemed pretty out of it."

"Nonsense!" Citrine declared. "I'm perfectly fine! I'm walking, talking, doing everything just like I would be before the battle! My gem wasn't scratched the slightest. It's flawless!"

"That's great," said Garnet, though she apparently didn't deem this statement worthy enough to smile for. "Now, let's get back to the temple."

"Ooh! A temple! Which one is it?" Citrine asked. "The Lunar Sea Spire?"

"Uh, no," said Pearl. "That, uh, fell into disrepair."

"And by that she means it fell into the sea," Amethyst added.

"Oh," said Citrine. She shrugged. "Well, like I said, some things were bound to change. So, which temple is it then?"

"We built a brand new one!" Amethyst said.

"Really? That might be interesting to see."

"Glad to hear it," Garnet said. "Let's get going." With that, she and the group headed to the warp pad. It was a bit crowded with the five of them, but they all managed to fit so they could make the journey in one trip.

"This is the new temple?" Citrine said, looking around. "It's… different from what I was expecting."

"No, the temple's through the door behind us," said Pearl. "This is merely the entrance. Or it was the entrance, but then we built this for Steven to live in after he was born."

"So," said Citrine, "this is what a modern human domicile looks like?"

"More or less," Amethyst said, shrugging.

"Hey, I just thought of something!" said Steven. "Where's Citrine going to stay? I have the beach house, and you guys have rooms in the temple, but what about her?"

"I don't think that's strictly necessary at the time being, Steven," Pearl said. "Gems don't need to sleep, after all. Our own rooms are mostly for convenience, a place where we can store our possessions. As Citrine doesn't have any possessions, there isn't any reason for—"

She stopped, as Steven was looking at her with large puppy-dog eyes.

"Ugh. Fine." She turned to Citrine. "Would you like to stay the temple, Citrine? It wasn't built with Gems other than Rose and us in mind, but we could probably find some room for you."

"No, that's okay," Citrine said. "I'll be fine in here. Besides, it gives me a chance to examine all this modern human paraphernalia. Like this thing," she said, moving to the microwave. "What is it?"

"It's a microwave," said Steven. "It's for heating up food."

"Oh, right," Citrine said, playing with the buttons, "humans need to eat."

"You want to look at human stuff?" said Amethyst. "I've got a huge pile of junk you can dig through in my room!"

"You don't want to do that," said Pearl. "It's a mess."

"Well, yeah," Amethyst retorted. "That's the _point_."

"No, really, this is fine," said Citrine. "I mean, I was inside my gemstone for five thousand years. Anything would be a step up from that."

"Now that that's all settled," said Garnet, "there's some other things I need to do." She once again activated the warp pad and, in a beam of light, vanished.

"Huh. So what should we do now?" Steven pondered, looking at Citrine. "Ooh! I could show you around town and introduce you to all my friends!"

"Friends?" said Citrine. "No, not today. I'm content just staying here."

"Oh," said Steven. "Well, how about we play a board game?"

"What's a board game?"

"Well… it's a game. With a board." He paused. "I can't really explain any better than that."

"Thanks for the offer, but I doubt I'd be any good at it."

"Neither is Pearl," Amethyst interjected, "but she stills plays them!"

"We could give you a tour of the temple," offered Pearl, deliberately ignoring Amethyst's jab. "You did mention you'd like to see what it was like."

"Yeah! I could show you my junk pile!"

"Amethyst! Citrine does _not_ want to see your junk!"

"Well, not at the moment," Citrine said. "There's still a lot of human artifacts to study right here." To illustrate this, she opened the closet and pulled something out. "What's this?"

"It's a board game," said Steven.

"Oh." She shook it and listened to the pieces rattling inside before putting it back.

"You sure you don't want to try and play it?"

"No," she said, "I'm content with just looking at these items. These strange, alien, human items that hadn't even been conceptualized at the time when I got trapped under that rock."

Her gaze turned to the portrait of Rose that hung above the doorway.

"So," she said, indicating the stairs that lead to the second floor loft, "what are these?"

"Those are stairs," said Pearl.

"Oh, right," said Citrine. "I, uh, I thought perhaps they served some special function for modern humans."

"No, they serve the same function as they did for Gems five millennia ago."

"Are you just going to ask what things are all day?" asked Steven.

"Yeah," said Amethyst, "that seems totes boring."

"How about you two go into town for the rest of today?" suggested Pearl. "I'll stay here and sate Citrine's curiosity. Or at least I'll try my best; I'm still not entirely sure what the purpose of some of Steven's toys is."

"Their purpose is fun!" Steven said cheerfully.

"…Right. Just go to the arcade for a few hours or something, okay?"

"Okay!" Steven and Amethyst said, and they raced out of the house.

It was nearly sunset by the time they returned, with Steven clutching a half-empty bag of fry bits that Amethyst was snacking out of.

"We're back!" Steven announced.

"Oh! Hello, Steven," Pearl said. She was sitting on a stool she had placed in the middle of the room so that she could observe Citrine's requests for identification with minimal movement.

Citrine, meanwhile, was rummaging through the drawers in the kitchen. "What's this thing?" she asked, holding up a small device.

"It's a can opener," said Pearl, her tone a mixture of boredom and frustration. "It opens cans."

"Oh, okay," Citrine said, putting it back.

"Wow, you still aren't done yet?" Steven said.

"I think she's deliberately stalling," Pearl said, quietly enough so Citrine couldn't hear. "She asked me to explain what a pillowcase was three times."

"Really? I wouldn't think it would be that tough a concept to grasp."

"I know! It's to protect the pillow from oily secretions and other accumulating filth so that the case can be laundered instead of the pillow itself! What's so difficult about that?"

"Oh. I thought it was to make the pillow match the sheets."

"Hey, you want the rest of these?" asked Amethyst, snatching the bag of fries from Steven's hand.

"Huh? Oh, no, you can have them."

"Thanks!" Amethyst said and shoved the entire thing into her mouth.

Pearl rolled her eyes in disgust.

"Hey," Citrine yelled, holding up a cheese grater, "what's this?"

"It's a tool used for shredding cheese," Pearl yelled back.

"What's cheese?"

"It's a food," said Pearl. "When's Garnet going to come back?" she grumbled.

Just then, the warp pad activated and Garnet emerged. "I'm back," she said.

"Great!" Pearl said, somewhat frenziedly. "Okay, Steven, time for bed!"

"What?" Steven protested. "I'm not even tired!"

"Yes you are, Steven, you just don't know it," said Pearl. "And hey, who knows? Maybe you'll dream about another Gem!"

"Really?" said Steven, his eyes widening and mouth grinning in giddy anticipation.

"Doubtful," said Garnet. "It was a fluke that Citrine's gem was stuck under that rock without either side finding her after the battle. It's unlikely to happen again."

"Well," said Citrine, "I guess that makes me special, doesn't it?" She giggled a little, but it was clear that it wasn't genuine.

"Regardless of Steven's dreams, he still needs his rest," Pearl said, turning to Citrine. "So we'll have to stop the explanations of Earth objects for today, okay? If there's a lot of noise in his proximity, like a constant barrage of questions and answers, for instance, he won't be able to sleep."

"I understand," said Citrine. "I'll just sit here quietly until the morning."

"Or," said Amethyst, "you could come to _my_ room and check out all the human stuff in there!"

"No," said Citrine, "I'll be fine just sitting here…reflecting."

"Alright," Amethyst said, opening the door that lead to inside the temple, "your loss." It closed behind her once she entered.

"Trust me," said Pearl, making the door open to her own room and heading through, "you're not missing anything."

Steven looked at Garnet. "I don't really have to go to bed right now, do I?"

"Not necessarily," she said, but she too turned and activated the doorway. "Good night, Steven," said Garnet. "Good night, Citrine." The door closed.

Steven turned to Citrine. "You sure you don't want to play a board game?"

Citrine shook her head.

Steven sighed and got ready for bed.

He had been asleep for only a few hours when he was startled awake by a session of loud noises. Peering over the railing to the floor below, he saw that Citrine was the source of the commotion. He had sort of expected that it was her; after all, she was the only major difference between this night and previous, uninterrupted nights of sleep. However, he hadn't expected to see her holding a cutlass, presumably summoned from her gem, and furiously chopping the table up into tiny bits.

"Hey!" Steven shouted, running down the stairs. "You can't do that! I need a table to rest my feet on!"

Citrine turned in his direction, causing Steven to stop dead in his tracks. Her eyes were filled with an intense anger and loathing that he had never seen before, not even from the Homeworld Gems.

"You!" she said, pointing towards him with her sword. "If it weren't for you, Rose would still be here!"

She lunged at Steven, who quickly fled before her weapon could reach him. However, in a tactical error, the direction he fled in happened to be towards the kitchen, where he found himself backed into a corner. Citrine advanced on him, her face an image of hatred and determination. She swung her sword—

And it made contact with the pink shield that had emerged from Steven's gem.

The anger in Citrine's expression vanished, replaced by fear and regret. "Rose's shield," she whispered. The hand holding her sword faltered and she dropped to her knees. Tears began pouring from her eyes.

"I'm sorry," she said softly. "I'm sorry."

She turned the blade to her breast.

"Wait, don't!" Steven shouted, the shield he had summoned vanishing. But it was too late; Citrine had already plunged the sword into her chest. Moments later, her physical form disappeared and her gemstone fell to the floor with a small clink.

The door at the far end of the room opened and Garnet rushed out, gloves at the ready. Future vision was able to inform her of various possible scenarios and outcomes, yes, but it could not tell her about every single possibility in every single location all the time; she had to actively choose peer into the future. This allowed her to differentiate between what was merely possible and what actually was, but it also allowed some threats to slip through, especially if she didn't consider them to be threats in the first place. And she hadn't considered her old ally to be a threat. It was simply chance that she had been checking her future vision and realized the danger.

"Steven!" Garnet yelled. "Are you all right?"

"I'm okay," Steven said, "but Citrine—she—"

"She'll be fine," Garnet reassured him. "She retreated into her Gem to heal."

"I know that," Steven said, "but…but what about everything else? She was attacking the table, and then she attacked me, and then she started crying, and then she stabbed herself—"

"I know." Garnet crouched down and placed two reassuring hands on his shoulders. "I'm sorry," she said. "I should have anticipated she might react like this. She wasn't as close to Rose as we were, but she also didn't have the same amount of time to process everything. But she fell in battle and was trapped inside her gem for thousands of years, and when she was finally able to reform, she discovered that all but two of all the Gems she fought with were destroyed; that the Homeworld has returned; that we have even fewer Gems to defend with than we had before; that her leader was gone. I think that last part was the hardest for her; Rose acted as an anchor for us, both during and after the war. She led us in building this temple and in devising a method to locate and bubble the corrupted gems. And more importantly, she helped us transition to a new life."

"But we couldn't both exist at the same time," Steven said sadly.

"It's not your fault," said Garnet. "And besides, if it wasn't for you and your dream, we wouldn't have ever found her to begin with. She'd still be trapped under that rock."

Steven picked up Citrine's gemstone from off the floor. "Not that it's any difference now; she's back in her gem again."

"Not permanently," said Garnet. "Bad things happen. We all have to face them eventually. But Citrine didn't want to face them, so she tried to ignore them. But she quickly reached a point where she couldn't ignore them anymore, and so all the emotions she had bottled up spilled out in an instant. We should have comforted her better, but it was hard to tell we needed to when she kept insisting she was fine. But now we know better, and now we can help. We just need to be more supportive of her once she reforms."

She looked at the pile of wood on the floor. "We'll also need to get a new table."


	3. Chapter Three

Steven sighed and gazed at the gemstone that sat on the counter. It had been nearly a month and Citrine still hadn't regenerated.

The warp pad activated and the Crystal Gems appeared. "Hey, Steven!" Amethyst called. "Still not back yet, huh?"

"No." Steven groaned. "How much longer are we going to have to wait for her?"

"There's no real way to tell," said Garnet. "The amount of time it takes to regenerate depends on the Gem and her state of mind. Pearl is methodical, so she typically takes a week. Amethyst is impulsive, so she usually reforms in about an hour. When I was destabilized by Jasper, I—well, Ruby and Sapphire—took about ten minutes each to regenerate, but that was an emergency. They usually take a bit longer."

"How long did Citrine usually take?"

"That's the odd thing," said Pearl. "She typically came back in just a day or two. I'm not sure why it's taking so long this time."

"Probably a number of things," Garnet said. "Guilt over attacking Steven. Fear that we may punish her for it. And, most likely, simple grief. She spent five thousand years in her gem, hoping that when she finally got out, everything would be okay. But when we freed her, she quickly found that things weren't okay. Too many things had changed. So she decided that it was better off when she was in her gem. She feels safe in there."

"So does that mean she's never coming out again?"

"No," said Garnet. "She'll come out again once she realizes that being in her gem for so long wasn't that great either."

"Oh," said Steven. "I hope you're right."

Garnet, of course, _was_ right. Just a few days after that conversation, the gem began to glow and levitate. "Quick, everybody!" Steven shouted. "Citrine's reforming!" The other Gems rushed into the house just in time watch her solidified figure touch the ground.

Just like Pearl, Garnet, and Amethyst, Citrine's new form had a different appearance than her old one; however, their change wasn't as dramatic as this was. Her proportions and color scheme remained the same, but her clothes couldn't have more dissimilar the elaborate, convoluted get-up she had worn a month ago. Her wardrobe now consisted of a simple, bright yellow sundress, shaped as if made from a single piece of fabric. Whereas her previous dress had reached all the way to the ground, this one only came down to her ankles, allowing her feet, clad in a pair of sandals, to be seen.

She looked around and saw everyone staring at her. "Oh! Hello, everyone," she said nervously. She glanced at Steven. "Rose's child."

"Steven."

"Right! Steven. I'm sorry for attacking you."

"Don't worry about it," said Steven. "It happens to me all the time."

"I'm sorry for everything," she said, addressing all the Crystal Gems. "The way I acted, the trouble I caused…everything. Will you forgive me?"

"Of course we forgive you," said Amethyst. "We've had to deal with Rose's loss too, and we all acted like jerks because of it at one time or another."

"It would be hypocritical of us to judge your actions too harshly," Garnet added.

"We're not going to leave you alone with Steven again for a while, though," said Pearl. "Just to be on the safe side."

"You're not going to have to worry about that; I'm not staying."

"What?" cried Steven; Pearl and Amethyst seemed a bit shocked as well. "But we just said we're not mad at you! You don't have to leave!"

Citrine shook her head. "I'm not leaving because you're forcing me to. I just need some more time alone. Outside my gem, I mean. I was thinking about just wandering wherever, seeing how the world has changed in five thousand years."

"You're not just running away from your problems again, are you?" Amethyst said with a raised eyebrow.

"No; I promise you I'm fine. For real this time." She paused. "Maybe not totally fine. Not quite yet. But I'm better than I was before. I'm not going to deliberately retreat into my gem again."

"And you're sure you're be okay?" Pearl asked. "Not just from yourself, either. Peridot and perhaps dozens of corrupted Gems are still out there."

"Hey, my weapon still works. I was able to cut that table into tiny bits, after all." She glanced at the intact table in front of the couch. "Or at least I thought I did."

"We got a new one," Garnet explained.

"That makes sense." Citrine closed her eyes and sighed. "I miss Rose. I wish I was able to see her one last time. But I was too late." She wiped away a tear that was forming. "But I know she's not coming back. And so I need to come to terms with that, but I'm not sure if I could do it here. It'd be too…exciting here. I need some time to just sit and think, to gaze at sunsets, to take in the beauty of this planet…"

"To grieve," Garnet offered.

"Yes, that. And so sorry, but I have to leave. I'll be back when I'm ready."

"And when will that be?" Steven asked.

"I don't know. Maybe a year, maybe less." She shrugged. "Well, good-bye, I guess." She headed towards the door.

"Wait!" Steven shouted.

Citrine turned around.

"Before you go," Steven said, "could we at least play a board game together?"

Citrine paused for a moment before a smile gradually appeared. "Sure."

So the two of them played a round of checkers, the rules and strategy of which Citrine picked up fairly quickly, though she still lost in the end. Afterwards, Citrine agreed to be taken on a tour of the temple and was shown the various locations within: the waterfalls that flowed from the top; the shores and lakes (and the pile of junk) at the bottom; and, most importantly, the room where they kept all the corrupted Gems they had bubbled so that she knew where to send them if she encountered one on her journey.

Finally, it was time for Citrine to truly embark. The Crystal Gems all gathered outside with her to say their farewells.

"You really have to go?" said Steven, gazing at Citrine with saddened eyes.

"Yes. At the very least, I'd like to see all the landscapes this planet has to offer. That's something I never got to do before the war." She bent down and gave him a hug. "Maybe I'll visit if I ever come across a warp pad."

"I hope you do."

"Well, good-bye," Citrine said, turning and walking down the beach.

The Crystal Gems shouted their own good-byes to Citrine and watched her get smaller and smaller as she walked further and further away.

Steven slumped down onto the sand. "Man, I miss her already."

"She'll be back sooner than you think," said Garnet.

"Really?" said Steven, looking up at her and beaming. "You can see that with your future vision?"

"No," said Garnet, "I mean that she'll have to come back here right away; the beach ends a few hundred feet in that direction."

"Oh."

* * *

 _[Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it! Sadly, I have no plans to revisit the character of Citrine any time soon, but I may write a sequel if I have an idea of what to do for it. But I have other stories to write first, both for Steven Universe and other media. Stay tuned!]_


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